


Reclamation

by AdamantineApostate



Category: Tom Clancy's The Division
Genre: Gen, Other, The Division
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:12:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7408933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantineApostate/pseuds/AdamantineApostate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hell as it was, it was still home.  Jason Ortega grew up in Manhattan in the shadow of his twin brother Vincent.  When everything he loves is taken from him, he is faced with a choice: escape from the hellscape that New York City has become, or stay and fight for what remains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reclamation

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a few months since its release and the game has had its ups and downs. The one thing that has remained is the fantastic world that was built for it, a world that we've barely scratched the surface of because everyone has been so busy clamoring over loot and rogues in the DZ. This is an attempt to scratch that itch.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason comes to grips with his brother's departure.

The apartment was a mess. Empty cans of beans, meat, and corn overflowed from a trashcan that had long ago been stripped of its liners. Dry plastic bottles littered the carpet, their contents since consumed. Broken transport pallets weeped sawdust onto the floor where they had been smashed to make coverings for the second floor window. Half-spent candles and the stubby remains of fully-spent ones were arranged strategically around the common space, their still smoking wicks marking them as the sole source of heat and light the previous night.

Vincent Ortega’s room was even more of a mess, but not through any fault of Vincent Ortega. The common room had been a victim of neglect -- Vincent’s quarters, the victim of assault. Bookshelves lay overturned, spewing their contents all across the floor. The bed was flipped sideways with the mattress resting against the windowed wall, partly casting the room in shadow. A broken chair languished in the corner, most of it tucked behind a composite wood desk that now very conspicuously supported the blade end of a hatchet.

Jason Ortega’s breaths came shakily. His heart pounded in his chest and sweat matted his brown hair and the olive skin of his forehead. The flame of anger had run its course and now required cleanup. Jason hated cleaning. It had always seemed pointless to him if it didn’t impair day to day functionality; now that there was little in the way of day to day anything, it seemed even more pointless. Anger left him much as it had come: suddenly, violently, and with little regard for collateral damage, leaving him standing alone in the broken pieces of his brother’s room.

Former brother’s room. Vincent was dead. Or so the files said. With all the lies that had been unveiled in the files, Jason wasn’t even sure what to think anymore. Vincent wasn’t who Jason thought he was. They might have been twins, but with the revelation of Vincent’s double life they may well have been strangers.

This SHD, this DIVISION, the very thought of it ate at Jason. Right under their noses they had operated, just waiting for the cue to go active. Always there, waiting. But why wait? Why not prevent? Millions of lives could have been saved, millions of livelihoods could have been preserved; there was so much they could have done to stop this virus before it had spread and created the hellscape that Jason now knew as Manhattan. There was so much that Vincent could have done, but didn’t.

The least that he could have done was tell Jason how he’d become such a good shot. Jason and Vince both loved guns, but he didn’t think Vince was getting extra firearms training on those weekend trips to speak with “corporate mentors.” He was a programmer for god’s sake, not a secret agent! But that, too, was a lie. The Division had called Vincent Ortega, and he had simply walked out.

The lights flickered and suddenly came back on. There was power today after the building-wide shutdown last night. With his anger sated, Jason walked out of Vince’s room and sat down at the table in the common room where his laptop sat plugged in. He booted it up and opened a folder on the desktop, hesitating a moment before finally opening the file marked “for_jason.mp4.”

The video player sprang to life and displayed Vincent’s face, recorded from the webcam on his desktop. Jason’s face. Vincent’s face. The two were very nearly identical. That’s what Jason got for being a twin.

The Vincent on screen sighed and buried his face in his hands. He was distraught, clearly burdened with something that he could hardly stand to carry. Jason remembered being amused at first, wondering if Vince would be announcing that he was gay or that he was about to propose to the girl he was seeing or that he was planning on bringing home a cat that weekend. But the video remained mirthless, displaying only Vincent’s tired eyes when he lifted his face out of his hands again.

“Jason. I don’t know how to tell you, but you need to know. This isn’t going to be easy for me to say because it will in all likelihood break everything you’ve known about our relationship. I can’t say sorry enough for it.”

Sorry. It was such a cheap word now, especially in the light of the viral apocalypse outside and the betrayal of trust in his very own house.

“But here goes. Jason. I’m not the brother you thought I was. I’m not an NYU grad student splitting an apartment with his twin brother. I’m an embedded agent, a government plant. I’m a member of the Strategic Homeland Division. Jason, I’m sorry it had to be like this. I’m sorry I had to lie to you. But this is what we, The Division, needed to do to protect you.”

Protect? From what? What could possibly be worse than the betrayal of your own brother? Jason could bring himself to shoot another man if he had to to stay alive. But he couldn’t bear to harm his own brother. Apparently Vincent had no such qualms.

“Secret agent or not, I am still your brother by blood and your brother by friendship. We grew up together. We lived together. I won’t let that die in spite of all I’ve already done to you.”

Jason had gotten about that far before tearing apart Vince’s room. The rage was too much. The pain was too much. But now that he was calm, he realized there was more.

“I know I’ll be activated soon. The Joint Task Force is losing control of the city. People are rioting. There’s rumors that there’s a huge jailbreak from Rikers Island. It’s gotten so bad that they’ve called in a PMC to help maintain order in upper Midtown. I know the Division is going to call me up, but before they do I want to make sure you’re safe. I did my best to leave you the tools you would need to survive the coming storm.”

Tools he did leave indeed. Vince’s old M1A and S&W 586 revolver were laid out on the table next to the computer, along with several loaded .308 magazines and moon clips of .357 magnum. Jason had put meat on the table numerous times using that rifle. But Vince’s pronouncement wasn’t about hunting game.

“You already know that everything is going to hell out there. The quarantine will be impossible to breach without specialized equipment. I’ll contact you with an escape plan if I can get one assembled in time. But if I don’t get back to you by Christmas, then you can assume that the worst has happened.”

Christmas, of course, was long gone. It was mid-January already. Vincent had been gone for just shy of a month. With power and internet intermittent, Jason had given up on trying to use his computer. But today he had decided for some reason to try again and found that directory suddenly on his desktop. Vincent, ever the computer wizard, had planted an encrypted directory on his hard drive that had decrypted shortly after Christmas, communicating from beyond the grave, as much a grave as Manhattan could give him.

With all the chaos -- the martial law, the jailbreak from Rikers, and the JTF pull-out from the Manhattan Quarantine Zone -- it was easy to assume that Vincent was dead. But somehow, being dead didn’t feel like the worst thing to happen anymore. Death was final. It was an end to all suffering both bodily and mentally, and if that was all that had happened to Vince, it would have been an easy passing. It was better than being infected and expiring slowly and painfully, being bludgeoned by rioters, shot by PMC or JTF, or dying of exposure trying to set up an escape plan.

“They told me not to get attached, but how could I cut ties with my own brother? I thought maybe I could get away with this if nothing ever happened, but then it did and here we are. I’m sorry Jason. I tried to juggle everything at once and ended up fucking it all up.”

Now Jason felt sorry for him. Despite them being the same age, Vince was always the more level headed and mature of the two brothers. His ability to cut through the noise and get things done was legendary both in their circle of friends and in school. Everything was effortless to him. Meanwhile, Jason felt like he had to try twice as hard to get the same results. He was jealous, vocally so. Not that that mattered now.

“So this is it. I’m making one last sacrifice to try and get you out of this mess. In this archive you’ll find GPS coordinates and passcodes. The first set is the most important. It will tell you where my stash is and how to open it.”

Vincent was entrusting him with information that only Vincent should know. This was illegal on so many levels. But with Manhattan falling apart and no news of whether or not the US government was still functional, Jason wasn’t sure it was even relevant anymore.

“My stash will contain supplies, but more importantly, credentials. Those credentials will allow you to access resources that you wouldn’t normally be able to, like safe houses, food, water, and ammunition. But more importantly, it will allow you to get off the damn island. Once you have the gear in my stash, go to Camp Hudson in Chelsea. Put in a request for a chopper to Newark Airport. If you do it through JTF they have to listen to you no questions asked. Once you’re on the ground in Newark, just walk out, ditch the gear, and make a run for it. Try and get to the Beatty’s farm near Scranton. If they’re still alive, they’ll take you in. If not then… well there should be enough game, seeds, and soil there for you to live off the land, just like we practiced.”

With a deaf ear to the computer and a hatchet to Vince’s room, all this just sounded like hollow platitudes. It was only now that Jason realized the magnitude of what Vincent was saying. He would be taking Vince’s Division gear. He would be bluffing his way off Manhattan Island to the mainland. He would be deserting NYC and running away to a friend’s farm to live out the rest of his days.

“I know you can do this, Jason. Even if I can’t save you, I know you can save yourself. You’re a fighter; you always have been.”

Yes, he was a fighter. But he also wanted life to go back to what it was like before the virus, back before the streets were a warzone, back when his brother was still just his brother. None of this was what Jason wanted.

“So take my gear. It’s my last gift to you. I love you, brother. And I’m sorry.”

The screen cut to black as the video ended. Jason closed his eyes. Vince was gone. New York was gone. Everything was gone.

Everything except him.

Jason looked up from his despair at the weapons lying on the table. They could get him out of New York. Or back into Hell.

Jason had grown up in NYC. He’d made those weekend trips to see abuela in Brooklyn Heights. He’d hopped the bus to Secaucus for all those weird anime cons that Vince was into. He’d walked Battery Park with that nerdy romantic girl from the bar. He’d sauntered down the streets of Little Italy, endlessly debating with Vince over which mom and pop joint had the best pizza.

Hell as it was, it was still home. Jason could leave it behind, but he’d never forgive himself for it. All his life he’d wanted to do something, to be greater than he was, to make his overachiever brother proud of what he’d become. Now was his chance to prove that he wasn’t a fuckup, to do something for the world that was more than just getting by.

“I guess this means I’m activated.”


End file.
